Omicron scare: Tripura likely to impose fresh COVID curbs on New Year

Tripura government is contemplating imposing fresh curbs on New Year in view of the threat of Omicron transmission in the region.

The decision has been taken in the wake of the Centre's directives to the States to ramp up surveillance.

Although not a single case of Omicron has been detected in Tripura, the state government has decided to install a machine for genome sequencing in the state to fast track its efforts in containing the spread of the new variant of COVID-19, which was first detected in South Africa.

Addressing a press conference Tripura Cabinet Spokesperson Sushanta Chowdhury on Friday said that Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb chaired a crucial review meeting to understand the situation.

"After receiving the fresh directives from the Centre, we held a review meeting. There is reason to panic as we don't have a single case of Omicron here in the state", he said.

He informed the reporters that around 69 persons came from foreign countries and among them swab samples had been collected from 33 persons. Fortunately, 31 samples showed negative results and reports of two cases were still pending.

"We had conducted the RT-PCR test during COVID-19. And for Omicron we need to do the genome sequencing test. At present we have no set-up for this and hence we are dependent on Biological and Molecular Studies in West Bengal for the test. By February we will install the machine at the GB Pant Hospital for the genome sequencing test," he said.

"We want to make an appeal to each and every citizen of the state to maintain the guidelines. We are capable of fighting Omicron as the infrastructure is enough. Strict measures will be in force and any sort of unnecessary crowding would be avoided", the minister informed the media persons.

Meanwhile, the Director of National Health Mission of Tripura, Siddharth Singh Jaiswal said that 4.20 lakh people were yet to receive vaccines while a total of 3.91 lakh people did not receive the second dose even after the prescribed time span is over.

( With inputs from ANI )

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